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October 6, 2008

ALDS 4: Red Sox 3, Angels 2

Red Sox win the ALDS and will open the ALCS in Tampa Bay on Friday night.

Jed Lowrie's hard single to right field scored Jason Bay, who had hit a one-out ground-rule double, with the winning run in the bottom of the ninth. Bay's head-first slide got him across the plate before Reggie Willits's throw arrived at the dish. And it was Willits's ill-advised dive on Bay's fly ball that allowed it to hop into the seats for two bases rather than being fielded on a hop for a single.

The ALDS-winning run revitalized a Fenway crowd that had been stunned by the Angels's two-run rally against Hideki Okajima and Justin Masterson in the top of the eighth. Jeemer retired the first two Angels on ground balls to second, but he walked Mark Teixeira on four pitches. Masterson came in and got ahead of Vlad Guerrero 0-2, but ended up walking him. Then he crossed up Jason Varitek by throwing a fastball when Tek was expecting a slider. The passed ball moved the runners to second and third -- and Torii Hunter's single to right field scored them both.

The Angels threatened to take the lead in the ninth. Kendry Morales doubled. Howie Kendrick bunted pinch-runner Willits to third. Manny Delcarmen relieved Masterson. Erick Aybar tried to squeeze on 2-0 but missed the pitch. Varitek then chased Willits back up the line towards third, lunging and tagging him on the back when Willits was five feet from the bag. Tek then fell down and the ball popped out of his glove, but the umpire rightly ruled it an out. The Angels strongly disagreed. Two pitches later, Aybar grounded to first for the third out.

Boston had taken a 2-0 lead in the fifth on singles from Mark Kotsay and Varitek, an RBI grounder from Jacoby Ellsbury and an RBI double off the Wall from Dustin Pedroia (who finished the series 1-for-17).

Lester (7-4-0-2-4, 109) was everything we could have asked for. Only four outs were recorded outside of the infield in seven innings and Lester allowed only one LAA runner past second base. In two ALDS starts, he gave up one unearned run in 14 innings. MVP awards are not given out for the DS, but Lester deserved one in this series.

In addition to doubling and scoring the winning run, Bay also walked and singled. Only Youkilis and Ellsbury did not collect hits, but Lyndon drove in the first Boston run and Yook was an absolute beast in the field yet again, playing third in place of Mike Lowell and making several excellent plays and throws. Kotsay also made two sterling plays on pop flies in the sixth and seventh innings.

The Rays beat the White Sox 6-2 earlier in the evening to win their series 3 games to 1.

Lowell Replaced on Roster; Out For ALDS & ALCSMike Lowell has been removed from the Red Sox's roster due to a right hip strain. Gil Velazquez replaces Lowell and is available for tonight's game. This move means Lowell would be ineligible for the ALCS.

It sure does. The Red Sox -- riding high, up 2-0, with fans thinking ahead to Friday's ALCS -- are now faced with the prospect of flying back across the country to Anaheim for a do-or-die Game 5 with the often exasperating (despite the low ERA) Daisuke Matsuzaka on the hill if they cannot find their bats and win tonight.

Jacoby Ellsbury (6-for-14, 3 doubles, 3 SB, 5 RBI) and Jason Bay (5-for-14, 2 dongs, though he was 0-for-5 last night) are going their part, but several players, including Dustin Pedroia (0-for-13, "I've got to get on [expletive] base"), Mike Lowell (0-for-8) and Jason Varitek (2-for-11) are not.

last night when LBJ stole and came off the bag and was out... when we had the bases loaded and couldnt plate a run... when we had coco on 2nd and no one drove him in... yeah. all of those things sucked.

We HAVE to win tonight. Not only because going back to LA will be awful. But I also realized this morning that I will not be able to watch Wednesday's game at all because it is Yom Kippur. Now the Sox don't want to piss off all their Jewish fans, do they? I assume that Youk will play regardless, not being Sandy Koufax or anything.

I am glad the game starts later since I am teaching until 9 tonight, but I bet I will regret saying that when I am falling asleep at 11 and the game is still going on. Staying up til 1 am last night was not so good!

We SoSH oldtimers were part of the Pants Liberation Movement before Huckleberry Happytalk was even hired by the Red Sox, let only before he inspired the name of a blog.

I had Sox in 4 - it's Sox in 4. 'nuf ced!

Me too. Fuckin' A right.

(And for all the people who picked the Red Sox in 5, you do know they have to lose tonight for you to be right?)

Over at Surviving Grady they say that Mike Lowell is a Kirk Gibson moment waiting to happen. Wouldn't that be sweet!

That would mean he spends almost the entire game on the bench before being sent up for a highly improbable shot at success. I could live with that. Dr. D was a big liability last night and he seems to be getting worse.

ish's pump levels notwithstanding, the crowd was very up last night. Game 7 of last year's ALCS was lke nothing I'd ever seen in person at Fenway. Last night wasn't like that, but it was in the same league. At times it was so loud the inside of my head was hurting. In a great way. We were so ready to explode in the 9th, 10th, 11th, etc. Too bad.

Extra Bases:Asked before Game 4 if he was confident enough to make the same statement, Scioscia shot back, "Let me say this, if there are more questions out there about me doing some kind of forensic analysis or pre-mortem, I'm going to have the same response. We're going to win."

I couldn't believe Kilgore's crap in Extra Bases. With the (rather inadequate) caveat that he's "maybe overstating it", he says:

[T]his is the kind of nightmare Red Sox followers feared and lived through time after time, for the 86 years prior to 2004. The Red Sox had complete control of the series. They faced 80 pitches last night/early this morning that could have instantly ended the game and the series. Now they are nine innings from going back to Anaheim for Game 5.

We lost a game. We hung on during a night in which the Angels had 16 hits to our 7. Christ, we could lose this series and it would not even be within shouting distance of pre-2004 in terms of people's emotions.

Let's Lester it up. Few hits from Drew / FY / Large Father et al. and it's on the Rays. Fuck.

I'm watching the game from Thom's with a friend tonight, so I'm not likely to be threading - as packed as I expect it will be, probably having my shiny new macbook pro out at the bar might be a really bad idea!

So Tim, you think a MacBook is enough - good enough compared to a MacBook pro?

I know at least when I was looking, the only major difference to me was the upgraded video card in the Pro.

I think the highest MacBook (BlackBook) the one i ended up getting, had the same specs for processor/hard drive/optical drive as the lowest level MBP. The large increase in price wasn't enough for me to justify the better video card, and I think it had a couple more ports on the side.

Of course, the increased size - something I wasn't keen on as I travel with it a lot, and wanted something smaller. I did think the screen would be a bit bigger but I can deal. It serves its purpose and I'm happy with it.

I've heard the new MacBooks coming out will have the same aluminum case as the Pros have had, to create uniformity among the brand.

Ish, the video card is the major reason I went pro instead of plain ol macbook - with boot camp, this is the best gaming pc I've ever owned! I maxed out my ram as well, which really shows when editing big sound stuff. I'm totally in love with the thing.

FYI for anyone in the greater Fenway area: Just got a call from a friend in Boston. He said they released extra tickets at the box office. He ran down from work, walked up to the window and had no problem. Face value.

FYI for anyone in the greater Fenway area: Just got a call from a friend in Boston. He said they released extra tickets at the box office. He ran down from work, walked up to the window and had no problem. Face value.

So when do we stop the JD juice? I thought it would be over after the loss. After a series loss perhaps? Or would a series loss call for a whole off season of JD nights. We could all go into a deep alcoholic state together and blog about it.

I've got a few Stella left, as well as loads of vodka (12 bucks for 1L of Absolut at duty free - how could you go wrong?!) as well as shooter bottles from Boston (long story involving the mini bar and me looking like an ass)

I love baseball and I love the Red Sox. I cannot appreciate anyone else's celebration. I can appreciate individual performances so long as they are not against the Sox. I am going to shit on my neighbors front porches after tonight's game. they have a huge fucking angels logo painted on their garage wall.

I appreciate pitcher's no-hitters even when they're not Sox (as long as they're not against us), great rookie seasons, guys hitting for the cycle, etc. etc. I can be happy for whole teams, especially underdogs.

But there's no conflict. It's not like I want to see the Rays celebrate again!

I appreciate pitcher's no-hitters even when they're not Sox (as long as they're not against us), great rookie seasons, guys hitting for the cycle, etc. etc. I can be happy for whole teams, especially underdogs."